A few weeks ago I logged on to make my first post in probably a year. I was on my ipad and before I posted it, it all deleted, so I didn't try again. It was introducing our new german shepherd.

A lot has happened in the last year, we moved to a bigger house in another state, it's out in the country, a subdivision, and everyone pretty much let's their dogs roam. We are the only ones with a fence and it only fences in a small portion of the yard behind our garage (we have 3 acres). Sammy has done great here, he loves all the other dogs in the neighborhood, and he does a good job staying out of the road and within our eyesight when is off leash. Everyone here pretty much looks out for everyone's dogs, it's a good place to live.

In spring, our weenie dog got out the dog door when we were pulling out of the driveway, and squeezed under the gate and ran under our truck and my husband ran over him. It was awful and it really got to Sammy. He and that dog were always into shenanigans.

In July, I stumbled across a female GS in a shelter about an hour away. Neko was 8 months old, house trained and the owners just didn't have the patience for her. An hour and $20 later she was mine. She fit right in with our family and our neighborhood, although didn't give her as much freedom as we do Sammy. She could open the gates up on her own so we put chains and padlocks on the gates to keep them in when we weren't outside. We also learned that she liked to chase cars, so we were trying to figure out the best way to train her not to.

We went out of town on Thanksgiving, left Wednesday, came back Friday. We left them with enough food and water, but had someone come and check on them Thursday anyway. We left one of the gates with just bungee cords on it, so the person didn't have to deal with chains and padlocks. I don't know what happened, but somehow Friday morning they got out and she got run over. The neighbor that hit her said she chased him and jumped out in front of him and he was drinking a Mountain Dew and was slow to react. He has a heavy truck so she died pretty much on impact. It was a terrible thing to come home to.

Poor Sammy has spent the last week moping around and laying in front of the fireplace. My son used to run around the house and Neko would chase him, nonstop. Being couped up in this ice storm without her has been awful My son wants to go ahead and get another dog, and we are trying to decide between an underground buried fence, or wireless containment system. We are definitely going to have to get something so they can't get out in the road.

I am sorry for all your losses, but I don't agree that how everyone lives where you are is great. I don't care if its out in the country, there is obviously dangers there, like anywhere else. Before you get the next dog please consider fencing and securing a larger area for them. Don't ever count on depending on your dog to not go in the street, that is like playing with fire. It only takes one time. I hope that you guys have better luck in the future. And again I'm sorry for your losses.

There should be be nothing about luck when you have dog(s). You lost one dog to an unfortunate accident, yes accidents do happen but not twice IMO. I would never leave my dogs for a couple of days with lots of food and water with someone checking on them just once....that's a recipe for disaster in itself and disaster did strike!

Until you can make appropriate and safe arrangements for your dogs, get a cat who can be left for a few days with food and water and the occasional person to check up on them.

I am sorry but this really upsets me. Totally heartbreaking AND totally preventable.

We weren't gone several days, we left late Wednesday afternoon, and came back around noon on Friday. I would never leave them knowing that we would be gone for more than one full day. I mean there are some days occasionally when we aren't traveling and our schedule keeps us so busy that I call and have someone go in my house to check on them.

When you get another dog, because you likely will - put your dogs on chains. We had a beagle who was an escape artist, especially garbage day - gross little thing. He was in a fully fenced yard, on a tie-out. Even if we were out with him. When we went on vacation, I told the dog sitter, because my dogs have to cross our driveway to get to the yard, to only take them on lead, release the lead at the yard. I can take them without leads, but I can read them like little books, I can see and sense that one second stupid decision they might make and am uber careful there are no distractions when they go to their yard. 36 hours, you will find almost everyone on this board will agree, is too long to leave dogs with only one check-in. When we go away, be it a couple days or a week, we have no fewer than 3 hour long visits per day and we'll pay whatever it takes to get those, or we stay put.

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